Dragon Magazine Issue 163: November 1990

part 2/4


The role of books: Dragon's teeth by Lee Killough, Hawk and fisher by Simon Green, and Nightwatch by Robin Wayne Bailey all try and combine mystery plots with fantasy, with varying levels of success. The one that's also a D&D novel gets the best review, curiously enough.

The interior life by Katherine Blake has two interconnected plotlines distinguished by the use of different typefaces throughout the book. Hmm. Wasn't Terry Pratchett's Reaper Man also published around this point using that device. This seems worth thinking about. Anyway, this review seems pretty positive as well, combining reality and fantasy subplots pretty well.

Elven Star by Margaret Weis and Tracey Hickman gets a review that focusses rather heavily on the meta aspects of the book, in particular a certain anagramatically named wizard who is probably also in Dragonlance, but for legal reasons cannot use the same name in this dimension. The reviewer has doubts about their abilities to resolve the plot in a dramatic and sensible manner.

Gossamer axe by Gael Baudino combines celtic harp music and heavy metal in another story putting it's own spin on combining modern day life with other worlds. While it does seem a little like the author is just writing about their own real life hobbies, at least that means the details are accurate, and there's plenty of distinctive elements springing from that.

Galen Sword 1: Shifter by Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens looks like an attempt to start a pulp adventure franchise. The amusingly badass named eponymous hero and his various wacky sidekicks face an alien menace, with mixed success, both in terms of plot and tone. I don't think they're going to make it to 28 books.

Servant of the empire by Raymond Feist and Janny Wurts gives us some fun fantasy politicking, showing that this is very much an option for building good plots on, and good inspiration for if your players are getting to that tricky name level region.

Another day, another dungeon by Greg Costikyan sees the noted designer play with game conventions and use them to drive the plot of this fun story rather better than, say, Kevin Anderson managed. Well, I guess Paranoia is good practice for that, whichever way round you do it.


Forum: Robert Roger shows it's not just D&D that suffers from twinkitude, with his star wars game currently having severe balance problems due to a little too much money going round. Remember, anything players can do, NPC's can too. You just need to turn up the opposition to reflect their capabilities.

B. Night offers a load of advice for new players. Is the magazine concentrating too much on stuff for the existing fanbase and becoming too obscure. Not sure I agree with that. Also really don't agree with flaking out because you're just not in the mood. It's hard enough to get a regular group going without "advice" like that.

Matt Bogosian also offers a number pointed contribution, this one advice for good DM'ing. Clear Communication of a Consistent Creation is what they can basically be boiled down too. Oh, and variety is important.

Allan Roberts points out ways in which characters can fail a mission without dying. That is not the only punishment for losing, you know.

Jeff Barnes also thinks that while death should be a big deal, removing resurrection entirely causes more problems than it solves. It'd certainly make the death penalty more acceptable if we knew we could fix mistakes after the fact.

Ofed Ofek also considers resurrection not an issue, because the costs involved are more than sufficient to keep you from doing it casually. At low levels, it's frequently easier and more fun to just start a new character anyway.

Willis M Burge is also in favour of resurrection, at the right price. Unless they got killed through sheer stupidity, they ought to have a chance to bring their character back. Suicide by DM. Always ought to be an option.

Jay Toser points out role-models for paladins from genres other than fantasy. Westerns are particularly good for this. (Let us not forget Murlyand, a canon example of cowboy/paladin crossover from the founding players.) Oh, and he references batman as well, which always gets contentious in the morality stakes. I wonder if anyone'll bite on that bait?


The voyage of the princess ark: The Ark enjoys one of it's most dramatic plot reveals yet. They thought they'd escaped the Night Dragon months ago. Now it is revealed that they've been played for fools for a while. Does everyone apart from the ordinary humans know about the hollow world and how to get there? They manage to escape from the hollow world, thanks to the ingenuity of the gnomes, but they are very much not in control of their own destiny at this point. One humiliation follows another, until it ends on a massive cliffhanger. The GM is definitely turning this from a sandbox exploration campaign to a fiaty railroad with great viciousness. Bloody 90's. Lets hope it gets better.

This month's crunch is info on Night dragons, both lesser and greater. They're a sneaky and deeply unpleasant bunch, even more than regular dragons, personally serving the immortals of Entropy. This does mean they're vulnerable to undead turning, holy water, etc, so it's not all bad. But they're not an easy fight, with every hit they do having a good chance of putting you out the fight. One of those monsters that would be substantially nerfed in later editions.

We also have another extra load of letters, all asking for extra info on various countries. (and the moon) Bruce encourages the writers to be more proactive in filling in the gaps in the Known world. After all, he can't single-handedly build a campaign setting. Prove that basic D&D is as popular as AD&D by sending stuff in yourself. Ahh, the problems that we were going through in that era. This brings them all back.


The HERO system introduces Fantasy Hero. Ahh, the joys of generic systems. You do need to show people how to bend them to whatever end. And that means splatbooks. Yay. More money.

Dragon Magazine Issue 163: November 1990

part 3/4
 
 
The role of computers: Secret of the silver blades is another Forgotten Realms CRPG that sticks pretty close to the actual game rules. Once again, you can even bring in your characters from previous adventures. It doesn't get quite the high marks of Azure bonds, mainly due to the plot not being as good, but in terms of gameplay, it does make some improvements. Another one to help the Realms rise to eminence as THE AD&D game setting with the mass market penetration.

Centurion: Defender of rome is one of those large scale tactical wargames where you get to build an empire from the top down. It has some control issues, and the fact that you have to prepare for events blind annoys the designers, but they still think it shows promise. The screenshot they have is certainly pretty amusing.
 
The keys to Maramon gets a rather mediocre review for not being sufficiently role-playey. False advertising, man. :shakes head:

Dungeon Explorer is basically Gauntlet, only with up to 5 players, and a little more NPC interaction. This is a pretty good thing in the reviewer's mind, giving them an RPG'y fix without requiring days of grinding and regular saving and restarting to finish a game.

The Revenge of Shinobi sees Sega sequelize to capitalize on the ongoing popularity of ninjas. Shuriken, double jumps, a special power you can only use once per life. This sounds very familiar indeed. I strongly suspect I may have wasted a load of money in an arcade on this one summer.


Fiction: Storm Winter by M C Sumner. Yo. Y-Yo. Sentient reptile people with a dry sense of humour in da house, representing it northside. Some of us really want to rule the world, but I just want to be a captain of sail. They try sacrificing me to their cruel god, but I'll team up with a human girl. We'll avenge her father, foil necromantic slaughter, send them packing, and hide the macguffin. And that's enough bad rap-filk for quite a while. Still, this was another fairly enjoyable bit of fiction, with some rather good world-building for such a small amount of space. And it doesn't take itself too seriously either. They're keeping up the good performance in this area.


The statement of ownership is in an odd place in the middle of the magazine this year, which means I missed it the first few times I looked through. Hmm. With an average of near 109 thousand, but a last issue number of only 103, it looks like they continued their slow rise early in the year, and then started declining in the last few months.  Interesting to note that the ratio of subscribers to newsstand buyers has increased quite a bit though. I wonder why. Perfectly normal fluctuations.

Buck Rogers Play by Mail game? Talk about combining an out of date property with an out of date format. More excuses for Loraine (roll of thunder, stab of organ music) to siphon money out of the company.


The marvel-phile has a lot of writers this month. This is probably because this is more leftovers from the new marvel handbook installment, and they can't remember who did which characters, or split the labor on each of them in some arcane way to make the production treadmill work faster. This time, it's a couple of cut villains, Nebulon and Solarr. A shapeshifting alien who tried to take over the world, and a mutant thug who absorbs energy from the sun, although not to ends as powerful and wide ranging as superman. Both are now dead, which may be a factor in their non-inclusion in the update. And It doesn't look like they've been brought back since either. Since I didn't find them very interesting to read about, I think they can stay in the dustbin of history where they were found. It's nice to see characters stay dead around here, ironically.


Making law out of chaos: Where the forum leads, full articles frequently follow. In this case, it's back to the alignment debates. The out of date alignment debates, using the terms from the 1st ed books rather than the 2nd ed ones to define things, just to make this a little more tiresome, and drive home just how much crap they still have in their slush piles. Were they really getting so few decent 2nd ed articles submitted? And this is a pretty dull one that keeps the definitions fairly restrictive. There's no room for people who just don't particularly care about morality, with neutrality being the opposite of the way it ought to work. (In reality, people are far more likely to side with whoever looks like winning) Puh-lease. One of the good things about 2nd edition was that it was more clearly written than 1st ed, and allowed for more customisation of characters. While there are some cooler bits in 1st ed, this is not one you get much from holding on too. Let it go.


KIng arthur is back, and he's a mutant in palladium's new sourcebook. Hee.


Professional Monsters: Another one about giving monsters classes, this time idiosyncratic specific ones in the mould of the halfling defender. Why should humans get all the fun? So here's three examples - Centaur Cavalier, Orc Barbarian and Lizard man Druid. Curiously, along with the usual low level limits usual for 1st ed nonhumans, they are, in general, somewhat weaker than their regular equivalents. Still, they do each have a few unique bonuses along with the penalties, and I suppose it's better than not having access to the classes at all. I think I'm unlikely to see players pick these guys, even if I was getting to run games a lot more frequently than I am, so there's no need to restrict them. The humancentricism will continue for the foreseeable future.


The dragon's bestiary: Spell weavers are a classic weird screwage monster. Alien, inscrutable, and able to cast several spells at once. They've really gone to town on these guys, creating things that are pretty scary on multiple levels, and packed with loving advice on their tactics and unique equipment. One that does get into official books and adventures later, these guys definitely encourage both DM's and players to step up their tactical efficiency, for whoever snoozes loses. And pray Mariliths find them as incomprehensible as we do, for multispellcasting in their hands does not bear thinking about. As you've probably guessed, I've always been rather fond of these guys, and it's nice to discover they're another one that got their start in the magazine.

Dragon Magazine Issue 163: November 1990

part 4/4


TSR Previews: A fairly small list of releases this month, but the forgotten realms is still getting a double bill. FRA3: Blood charge completes the horde trilogy of modules. Their sound and fury burns itself out, but will continue to have repercussions. R A Salvadore is still prequelising in Exile. Drizzt has been kicked out of his home, and has to figure out how to make friends among other races that hate his. AAAaaaaaaaaaangst!!!!!!

Dragonlance finishes it's second spin-off character trilogy, with Galen Benighted. The things we do for our family, eh. Not an uncommon theme, really.

Lankhmar gets LNA2: Nehwon. A magical scavenger hunt? Sounds a bit goofy. Is this in theme with the books?

Marvel superheroes finishes getting grim and gritty in MLA3: Night life. They've done cosmic, they've done gritty, they've done time travel. Where will their adventures take us next?

And finally, it's another standalone book. The Alien Dark by Diana G Gallagher. From a truly alien point of view, the ad copy says. Does it live up to that bold statement?


The Affordable Fort: A second minis-centric article this month to supplement the regular one. We haven't had cardboard castles given away with the magazine for a few years now, but that doesn't mean you can't make your own. Cardboard, glue and paints are not commodities in short supply. The space and facilities to construct, display, and move these around, on the other hand, may well be, but that depends on your situation really. With excellent photography, this is a nice little piece full of practical advice useful for complete amateurs. Which makes sense, given how infrequently they run advice like this. Still, this does make me realise that the aimed average expertise level of the readership is actually lower than 10 years ago, even though the production values are substantially increased. Slightly sobering, really.


Dragonmirth reminds you that a good DM is essential. Yamara reminds us that there are better ways to clear a dungeon than going in hacking and slashing. Grognards may disagree. We get an enemy introduced and a flashback in Twilight Empire.


Sage advice goes from peach to yellow. This is what happens when you expose scrolls to too much sunlight. Still, as long as it doesn't affect the legibility of the writing, it's not a problem.

Why is it so hard to change your gender back after donning a girdle ( Hee. Because  Gary found it amusing, back in the day. You might as well just enjoy your new gender. A lot of people would pay a lot of money for a complete, fully functional sex change. )

How do you choose a spell's school (logic and common sense, based on what it does and how it does it. )

If a spell is of multiple schools and one is banned, can a specialist use it (Yes. This is very exploitable if you're designing custom spells. )

How do you determine a multiclassed characters ego (use the best level )

Can grease counter spider climb (Probably. )

Are immortals immune to mortal magic or not? (Not entirely. So it goes)  

I'm confused by the prices in the castle guide ( Yeah, accountancy's a bitch, particularly when you don't have proper editors and leave some pages behind. Skip has had Words with the writer, and will cap him if he makes a mistake like that again.)


Through the looking glass: Back to the reviews in time for christmas. A battlemat with a forest background. A pair of odd little figurines that aren't really that great for wargaming, but still look pretty neat. A rancor pit from Star Wars, which isn't very well done. And some more generic fantasy and sci-fi miniatures. Business as usual here.


A hoard for the Horde: Another bit of cut material from a recent Realms supplement here. Why do we never see stuff like this for dragonlance or greyhawk? So Zeb overwrote this time, and here's the monsters they decided to cut. Ironically, my second hand copy of the Horde boxed set came with this pull-out included, courtesy of whoever had it before, so I've already seen this.

Dzalamus dragons are three headed grouches that'll swoop upon you and temporarily reduce your level with their breath to soften you up. Fortunately, that's their only magical trick. They'll never make a good ruler of nations like some other dragons I could mention.
 
Manni are humanoid crow things. Probably related to tengu somehow, only with considerably less style and magic. They're basically another thing in the goblinoid niche, only tougher and able to fly. Which can make all the difference with a little cunning. Still, I can see why they weren't considered essential.

Morin are strange ugly little burrowing things that look very similar to a creature we'll see later in Orpheus. Ahh, the joys of body shape squick. They're not hugely dangerous individually, but come in reasonable sized swarms. Whoever they pick on is in trouble. Probably the coolest of the monsters here.

Sand cats are pretty bland, and another thing that I can see why they got cut. Course, they can still kill your average 1st level character easily enough, with the whole claw/claw/bite/rake thing. That's D&D for you. Redundant monsters aplenty amongst the cool ones.


A somewhat odd progression this issue, as they go quite from forward-thinking articles to out of date and tired ones over the course of it. They also seem to be increasing the number of articles which are simply cut bits from upcoming books, which I'm really not sure if I like. Well, I suppose I'll see a hell of a lot more of that if I ever do the 4e Dragons, and much of it isn't even cut material, just sneak previews. Anyway, overall, this is a fairly average issue in terms of quality, with a fairly even mix of cool stuff and crap. They're definitely an overcommercialised juggernaut now, but they are still acting as an airing ground for quite a few cool ideas. As ever, you'll have to keep your filters ready, and don't forget to read between the lines. On we go to the season of snow.

Dragon Magazine Issue 164: December 1990

part 1/4


116 pages. From one very familiar special topic to another one, in our third oriental special issue. 121, 151, and now this, with plenty of issues in between featuring oriental articles as well. Just can't escape it, can they? Still, last issue they managed to justify their repeated subject with new ideas. Can they do so again? As ever, I live in hope.


In this issue:


Letters:  A letter from people who seem to have assumed D&D = satanic = religion or something. Roger tries to explain, with much bemusement. Our sole purpose is to make money by selling stuff. Religion and philosophy do not come into it.

A letter asking where the new classes, adventures and places are. We have published quite a few of the first recently, with another one this issue. The other two are Dungeon's remit. You'll have to buy that. (PS. Death Masters, dangerous? Ahahahahaha!!!!! A wizard of equal level trounces them effortlessly. What are you on Roger? Did you ever playtest them at all? )


Editorial: Hmm. This is an idea we haven't had since 1985, from a different perspective. The concept of analysing people based on what kind of characters they most frequently play is an interesting one, but not something that works as well as armchair psychiatrists think. For a start, people frequently choose roles that actively contrast with their most common real life one, as a means of release and exploring different personas. For another, it's surprising what a few events early in a character's history can have on the way you portray them, often in ways originally unintended. And let's not get into the whole playing members of the opposite gender issue. While there are a few exceptions, such as the guy who insists on playing catgirls at every juncture, I think we can safely rubbish Katherine Kerr's theory that playing evil characters means you're a bad person in reality. Most people have a little more breadth and nuance to their personality. Just watch out for the ones that obsess on one thing, and bring it into whatever they do, even if it's inappropriate. This has been a nicely thought provoking little editorial.


Flying feet and lightning hands: We kick off our themed section rather literally, with a bunch of new MA maneuvers, including a new kick. Most of our articles in this vein have been on new styles combining different permutations of the existing maneuvers. Looks like Len wants to push things a little further. Just as with the core ones, there are several techniques that are obviously supernatural mixed with the physically achievable ones, showing how blurred that particular line is in D&D. Some of them are compiled from other articles in the magazine, where they were class specific abilities. A couple of them are really scary, but most aren't that impressive. So it does nothing for the overall balance of MA as an option, while setting a few more traps for the mechanically unwise player. Purchase with caution. You know how limited your slots are, and every one counts.  


Things your sensei never taught you: More MA moves here, and a little advice on building your own styles containing them. MA styles shouldn't simply be bunches of random moves, but a themed collection with definite strengths and weaknesses. No great surprises here. What is slightly more surprising and irritating is that a few of the moves are pretty much the same as the last article. Since that seemed to be compiling stuff, having one immediately following it that not only makes it out of date again, but also introduces redundancy in terms of moves to buy is rather poor organization on the editing staff's part. You could have merged these first two into a single article, and both would have been rather better off for it. Wakey wakey Roger.


Bonds of brotherhood: Ahh, the old background filling in questions. Monks are supposed to have been trained by some organization. Like clerics, this means you can get substantial world integration benefits by spelling out what organizations, gods and philosophies are out there for the PC's to follow. If you set them up so they have good reasons to go out adventuring, that helps even more. So here's a bit of advice on that, and three sample orders from the writer's home world. A good one which hunts down and shares knowledge. An evil one which controls places from behind the scenes under a humble guise. And a neutral one which tries to pacify and enlighten barbarians from the inside. All seems pretty sensible, and draws on a nice range of literary sources for inspiration. File under solid but unexceptional.


Born to defend: As they've said earlier, new classes are popular. Just the oriental ones introduced here alone nearly double your options from the main book. Doesn't matter if they're poorly balanced or thematically misconcieved, people still crave the crunch. No surprises that another new class finishes off this section then. The Piao Shih, who's job it is to escort caravans and people across the huge distances and substantial dangers of the oriental world. You can see how one of them would wind up with an adventuring party. And they do have some exceedingly valuable skills, especially since oriental characters don't have a ranger equivalent, and the closest thing, barbarians, are kinda persona non grata in polite society. They are pretty high on customizability, with many of their abilities selectable from an array of options that looks easily expandable. They do have a bit of an issue in that they only earn half experience from killing things and taking stuff outside the line of duty, but since this is also a problem Shugenja, Samurai and Sohei face, this is not an insurmountable issue. All you need to do is make sure trade is an important part of your group's activities. They're certainly a lot easier to integrate than Geisha, and they certainly don't look egregiously over or underpowered, while having plenty of distinctiveness and flavour. If your group is playing Marco Volo, having one of these come back with you seems pretty plausible. And then the paths the adventure could take just keep on forking. What ideas will they have next.

Dragon Magazine Issue 164: December 1990

part 2/4


Sage advice loses it's colour for the first time in a while. Oh noes. Poor skip. Just when skip was getting used to it, they pull the plug again. Skip will have to make some arrangements to fix this.

Can magic resistance stop gaze and protection attacks (no, and maybe. )
If a staff has all it's charges used, does it still retain a bonus to hit and damage (No. It's just a useless lump of wood. )

How do clerics read scrolls if they don't have spells to do so. (Err. Somehow. )

Where can I get more info on herbs to make proper use of the herbalism proficiency (Waay back in issue 82. No, we still don't do reprints. You'll have to get hold of it yourself. )

How many slots does it take to learn everything about poisons. What can I do with that knowledge (Ask your DM. Don't think that more powerful poisons'll be cheap or easy to make, even if you have the knowhow. And remember kids, poison use is hazardous to your health and your alignment. Don't do it at home. )

What abilities do you get when polymorphed (You've asked this before. Skip can't be bothered. Skip is still pissed off about losing his colour. Skip is off to complain to the editor. Seeya later, bitches.)


Forum: S. D. Anderson points out that wizards actually stand to benefit more than fighters from adding firearms to their arsenal. They're not likely to be the ones holding back their development. It's more likely to be the clerics, quite possibly from orders by their reactionary bosses.  Remember, the magic/technology divide is a pretty artificial one, and most in setting characters would likely ignore it, seeing both as perfectly normal within their normal parameters.

Toby Myers trots out the old "computer can never replace the imagination of a human" argument. I think everyone agrees with that, yet they still keep using computers. This is pretty much a non debate.

Jeannine Cochran wants demons and devils back. Good needs strong opposition to really shine. We shouldn't listen to a bunch of mothers who'd rather ban things for everyone than keep an eye on what their children have access to personally.

Kildare Bangore speaks up in promotion of anime, building on Gregg Sharp's letter. It may not have gone mainstream, but there are quite a few clubs out there, trading videos and giving people a forum to talk about these things. He also goes into a talk about the history of the giant robot genre. Guess who was originally responsible.

Patrick E. Baroco and a bunch of other kids speak up to praise D&D, and give their opinion on it's problems. They of course think that they shouldn't be banned from playing it. Quite right too. We've already seen the educational benefits roleplaying sneaks in under the guise of cool explosions and killing stuff.


The voyage of the princess ark: Sweeps week on the princess ark, as we discover that they've been catapulted 34 years into the future. Now Bruce doesn't have to worry about accidentally putting anachronisms in his stories. However, this means that Haldemar, and all his crew, are now people out of time, with everyone they knew changed dramatically or dead. What's worse is that while they were gone, their enemies have been doing evil stuff in the world at large. To top it all off, the empress decides that what they have seen can never become known to the public at large, so the entire crew are now condemned to roam the world forever, like the flying dutchman, never to settle down anywhere, never able to candidly talk about what they've been through. What a miserable reward for all they've been through. Still, it means we're going to get lots more adventures from them, so it's good news for us. Will they ever find a happy ending? Will the political climate change again sometime? We'll have to keep reading to see.

On the OOC side of things, this month we finally get stats for Haldemar. He's certainly not your typical archmage, with his dandyish socialite tendencies and penchant for gambling. He's actually not that twinked, with fairly modest stats and magic items for his level. Talasar, on the other hand, has considerably more innate talent, despite being lower level. This is also a good example of how alignment means surprisingly little, with personal bonds between the crew transcending it. Another interesting thing to note about the way Bruce handles D&D. So what kind of wringer will his evil mind put the characters through next year? I look forward to seeing.

Dragon Magazine Issue 164: December 1990

part 3/4


The role of computers: Another interesting sign of the times this month, as they talk about sound cards. While manipulating recorded audio still involves an expensive custom rig just for basic 4 track facilities, and most effects need to be tediously rendered on, computer's ability to sequence and create digital audio on the fly is improving quite a bit. We're currently progressing past the age where you only had 4 basic waveforms to work with to try and represent everything in the game, and into the age of General MIDI soundbanks. 16 channels full of cheesy sounds that often differ significantly from module to module. Not an age I remember with fondness. If chiptunes are just becoming the cool underground thing, I hope that doesn't mean general MIDI sounds will be the next in line for a kitschy retro revival. Still, like the things that give us clues to the state of the internet back then, this is very nice for me to see. If they actually come through with their hints and review some music sequencing software, I'll be all over that action.

Megatraveller 1: The Zhodani Conspiracy brings the RPG to the computer with a level of success similar to the Azure bonds game, creating a huge universe full of things to do and people to kill. As befits the original game, just generating a good set of characters and running them through the careers system can involve hours of mucking around, which they seem to enjoy. Their main gripe, as is often the case, is that save points are annoyingly far apart. You'll just have to suck up the extra challenge that causes.

Flood is an arcade game where you have to collect stuff, avoid enemies, and escape, while water slowly rises. (and of course, you have no swimming ability at all) Now that definitely sounds familiar. Rainbow island should be along pretty soon, shouldn't it.

Bloody Wolf is a top down shoot-em-up, where you explore and kill terrorists to rescue the president. Another one that sounds pretty familiar, it seems like most of the big genres are present and correct now. Just a matter of the weird little discoveries and developments to come.

The Animation studio is a drawing product produced by Disney. At $179, this is obviously a pro level product rather than a game, and quite possibly is a variant on the software they're currently using to facilitate their movies. It does have several neat tricks to help you produce smooth animations and a whole bunch of preloaded disney characters for you to modify. Now that's something that'll definitely ratchet up people's temptations to pirate.

Bad Blood and The dark heart of Uukrul get slated due to bugginess issues. Not only are they continuing to push complaints against companies releasing shoddy material, they're making a new section to focus on this. I guess we should be glad that we don't see stuff like this too often in modern reviews, because it means the complaints have worked. (plus, there's downloading patches now. ) Still, this little subplot of history continues to amuse.


Pages from the mages, part VI: It's been over 5 years since Ed published one of these. What a welcome returnee. Once again, 4 new spellbooks, each of them as filled with both flavour and nifty new spells as ever. Just like new classes, new spells are a perennial favourite of players and GM's. Just the thing to keep people happy for christmas.

The book of Shangalar the Black is, unsurprisingly, a nice bit of necromancy courtesy of one of your paranoid liches. Two offensive spells based on manipulating bone, and two defensive spells, which are essentially just conversions of cleric's undead elimination toolkits. Not nearly as fun as the hordes of crawling claws power he hints at in the fluff description though. Guess you'll have to do that one manually.

The Glandar's Grimoire also has some fairly effective necromantic capabilities, including one spell that's exceedingly scary and will cause PC's a lot of annoyance if put up against it. Vampiric touch eat your heart out.

The Tome of the Wyvernwater Circle is a druidic tome, lost when they were attacked by expansionistic beholders. It's new spells are relatively straightforward offensive, defensive and warding ones, using nature in practical ways to kick butt (although mold touch is a bit underpowered for it's level. )

The Hand of Helm is a spellbook by clerics of said god. It's also pretty heavily inclined towards direct offence, defence and buffing effects, as befits the god's aggressive nature. Ed does seem to be a bit lower than normal on the whimsy this year. Still, I guess that means players are more likely to grab these spells and put them into regular rotation. Whether that's a good thing or not s definitely a matter of opinion.


Role-playing reviews: New classes may be popular, but new races are almost as much so. They also fill the craving of players for crunch, and allow for interesting new roleplaying challenges as well. I'm certainly guilty of having my decision to buy a book based on if it has new splats to add to the game, particularly where White Wolf are involved. That trend still hasn't reached it's zenith, but it's definitely well on the path. And as usual, some are good, and some are bad. Which of this recent batch will win Jim's approval?

Trollpak is of course an updated version of the classic Runequest supplement, originally reviewed in issue 67. Since it was so popular first time round, this time it's been split into 4 expanded products for maximum milking of profit from their fanbase. Still, the production values have been improved, and they retain their interesting history and characterisation from the original. It's certainly not a waste of money, especially if you're a newer Runequest player.

Troll gods adds some of the other stuff from the original Trollpak, plus a bunch of new deities. Much of this is straight rehash, however, making it not particularly great value for money if you have the related products already. One mainly for completists then.

PC1 Tall tales of the wee folk does for the fae what Orcs of Thar did for goblinoids, opening up both an area and it's inhabitants. This of course involves things with a wide range of HD and special powers, which can be tricky to balance. There are a few mechanical issues, but a little fudge solves those quickly enough. Adding these guys as PC's or antagonists can spice up your D&D games quite adequately.

PC2 Top Ballista moves things into decidedly goofy territory, a flying city filled with techno-gnomes and a bunch of other weird creatures, most of which can also fly. Along with the gnomes, things such as Pegataurs, sphinxes and harpies are made available as PC's. Unfortunately, the slapdash and often rather wonky attempts to balance them continue, with some creatures virtually crippled by their XP progressions. The adventures show a similar degree of mechanical issues, and the whole thing shows signs of not having been taken very seriously. Bleah.

GURPS fantasy folk gets a relatively ambivalent review. It's the usual generic stuff, designed to help you build your world rather than put any distinctive spins on the creature. This means it has the usual high quality mechanics with more than a hint of dullness. Don't know why they bother reviewing these when they nearly always say the same thing.

Dragon Magazine Issue 164: December 1990

part 4/4


The mechanics of the iron cobra: Another ecology by any other name here, as we cover a creature which makes the word inappropriate. One of the more sophisticated, if not the most powerful of constructs, iron cobra's powers of detection, and ability to be programmed with relatively complex orders makes them more desirable servants than smelly brainless or treacherous undead, and they're cheap enough to mass produce. For the first time in a while, we have a strong showing on both the fiction and the footnotes fronts. Plus, since this is a 1st ed monster that hasn't been officially updated yet, the writer is kind enough to reprint the actual stats here as well. How very nice of them. That really puts the cherry on this sweet little christmas cake.  


What has he got in his pocketses anyway?: Ed Greenwood finds the time to deliver a second article for us this christmas. This is actually a rehash of one from issue 104 (they even reuse exactly the same artwork, which is a bit cheeky. Ed decides to go for fewer options, but greater detail on each one than the pervious iteration. The spirit of sadistic fun is still there though, with many of these results showing his sheer genius at coming up with twists on the usual plot ideas and odd items. Many could provide several sessions of adventure if deployed well. Looks like he's still very much got it, despite his workload keeping him from checking in here more often.


TSR Previews: An even lighter set of releases coming next month. Post christmas slump or something. The Forgotten realms continues to bounce from east to west with great enthusiasm. FROA1: Ninja wars sees Kara-Tur integrate further into the Realms, and Ninjas worm their way into all sorts of organizations. Who's really in control? Meanwhile, Crusade, by James Lowder sees the Horde trilogy come to an end in the novel department as well. King Azoun gets to kick ass and suffer indignities and compromises. They're really having fun with this world.

Greyhawk sees WGA4: Vecna Lives! Heeee's baaaaack! And he wants his hand, eye, (and their stupid anthropomorphic personifications) and dominion over the whole fucking Oerth! Hmm. Someone really ought to do some foiling before we spend an eternity as undead slaves. Watch out for the railroaded prelude extraordinare.

D&D continues filling in it's alternate setting, in HWA2: Nightrage. See the Nithians, and find their feathered serpent. What other strangeness will we encounter along the way?


Novel ideas: Looks like these guys are in theme this month, as they decide to talk about the Horde series of novels. Zeb Cook, Troy Denning, and James Lowder have all been immersing themselves in Oriental culture, to varying degrees and levels of ease. As usual, we get some interesting behind the scenes info. Zeb really isn't a natural fiction writer, despite having tons of info to draw upon. Troy on the other hand, does seem to be, producing more work in an hour than I usually manage in a day. But even he had to hone his craft and get over his insecurities about the quality of his ideas. Another article that helps to hammer in what a production treadmill TSR has become, with deadlines mapped out well in advance, and writers put under considerable stress to achieve them. If you want to work for them, you've got to jump on board the running train and hang on like hell until you find your balance, then keep going until you burn out. Not a very tempting option, really.


Dragonmirth reveals how you get lawn gnomes. Replica artifacts become fashion statements in yamara. The characters fight in miserable weather in twilight empire.


Through the looking glass: Ooh. Another very interesting topical event from the realms beyond gaming in here as well. The great attempt to ban lead from miniatures (and lots of other stuff as well, but that's not important .)  Robert is not happy about this at all, and encourages you to stand up, organize, and complain vocally. This is a spurious ban, and one that will do huge amounts of damage to the hobby for minute environmental benefits. How very alarming. I seem to recall this one dragging out for years before ending with a whimper, and it should be another interesting little subplot to track month-by-month.

The usual bunch of reviews for figures of all sizes are here as well. Witches, sorceresses, anti-paladins, chimera, firbolg, to fill your general fantasy cravings. Blue Ardua from Talislanta for those of you who want something more specific. Jabba the Hut and his entourage, if you're feeling a little sci-fi. The HMS Victory, if you want to go historical. And some more textured terrain for if you want to represent the hassles your miniatures are going through to get to the battle. Until the ban actually takes place, they aren't going to let it spoil their fun.


With diversions into psychology, composition and law this issue, this has been an unusually wide ranging and interesting collection, even if the themed section isn't that great. The writers are full of cool ideas, even if some of them are rather goofy, and not all are very mechanically rigorous. But even so, there's plenty of usable stuff to pick out this time round. I think this is a fairly positive end to the year. Let's see if next year can top it.

Dragon Magazine Issue 165: January 1991

part 1/4


116 pages. For a 4th issue in a row, they do a special topic that they've done previously. Albeit in this case, the previous is a little further back than the last few, as underwater adventuring last got a special in issue 48, where it was kinda overshadowed by the april fools silliness anyway. I think this is a sufficient gap that revisiting isn't too egregious. Let's hope they've got some good material to fill this in with.


In this issue:


Letters: A rather amusing letter about Roger's distrust of letting his kids practice martial arts. When he said practice MA, he really meant flailing about hyperactively and jumping on the bed. No artistry and very little martialness is employed at all. Tee hee. This sounds very familiar. I was doing that kinda stuff around this time as well.

Another letter asking for another index. It's been on the internet for some time, responds Roger. Do not hesitate to download it.

A letter promoting the Gen Con art show. It's not just games and miniatures that have tons of stuff on them happening there. Gotta keep building things up, diversifying and spreading, so we can make money from the greatest number of people.


Editorial: Bah. Some people are never satisfied. The soviet union has just broken up, bringing an end to the paranoia of nuclear apocalypse. We're closer to global peace than ever before in history. But we've still got quite a way to go, and it is the nature of many people to always look at the negatives and cry doom. Really, if we can avoid ecological disaster, and survive the potential collapse of civilisation when we exhaust the fossil fuel supply, things don't look too bad for the next few million years. Eventually an asteroid will hit, or the sun will burn out, and we'd better hope we've got the hang of space travel before then, but really, we would be a lot happier if we didn't keep making problems for ourselves beyond the real inevitable ones. On the other hand, without that urge to fantasize about potential problems when we don't have enough pressing real ones, we probably wouldn't have gaming as we know it. Human nature is weird. If only there was something we could do. Fraid I'll have to leave the transhumanist propaganda for another time.


Anchors & Arrows: Another out-of date article kicks things off. You know, the 2nd ed battlesystem has been out for over a year now, you really could have converted this one over. It's not as if 2nd ed is less friendly to the idea of naval battles. But they still think 5 pages of add-ons to the old mass combat system is a good way to start things, for some reason. I must confess to a degree of bemusement at that choice. Still, our regular forumite Thomas M. Kane attacks the idea with gusto, with rules for movement, artillery, boarding, ramming, fires on board and weather. Some of them are a bit vague, but I think that on the whole, this is useful stuff. It may be rather a niche market, but if it won't merit a whole supplement, then the magazine is the best place for it. I do question it's getting first place though. If they can't produce something more relevant to the wider population, they may be in trouble.


The dragon's bestiary: Giant archerfish shoot you into the water, just like their real world counterparts do to bugs. Just the thing to use as a random encounter for overconfident players on a boating trip. Staying out of the water will not protect you.

Giant damselfish turn the tables on fishers by using bait that looks like a drowning person, encouraging you to jump in and become dinner. Once again, compassion is rewarded by screwage by sadistic DM's. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Just kill everything and get the xp. That policy never really goes out of style. Not a brilliantly inventive pair, but another good reminder that reality is full of cool ideas ready for the conversion.  These should be easy to slip in any time your players run across a river.


Undersea priests: Hmm. This is much more like it. The logistical problems underwater spellcasters experience, and the adaptations to the regular spell lists and paraphernalia that need to be made to accommodate this. Holy water is replaced by holy silt. Spells are written on seashells and bits of carved bone. And there's tons of reskinning that needs to be done on specific spells. A few years ago, they were trying to force all the monsters to fit the humancentric mold if they wanted any class capabilities. Now they've started down the path that'll lead us to using your own body as a spellbook via tattoos, Staves replacing books, Dragons becoming invaluable sources of unique magical lore, and all manner of boundary stretching experimentations with the nature and form of magic. One size does not fit all, and there's a lot of changes you can make, many developed due to necessity. With a decent number of new spells as well, this is very handy for DM's, and quite possibly for players as well. If your campaign spends any extended period underwater, you'll want to pick up some of these tricks. Looks like this issue is picking up pace.


The role of books: In the net of dreams by Wm Mark Simmons looks like another holodeck gone wrong story, as people get trapped in a computer game. (heavily based upon D&D) It's not perfect technically, but the reviewer finds it a lot more fun than Kevin Anderson's similar efforts.

Fire on the border by Kevin O'Donnel Jr takes us to the 24th century, to deal with some rather awkward politics, with the fate of planets in the balance. The destruction of worlds is handled with a bit more seriousness than, say, the Hitchhikers guide, and it all seems pretty positive, even if it doesn't quite manage to capture the galactic scope it sets up. Thousands of worlds is a tricky thing to manage, isn't it.

The black throne by Roger Zelazny & Fred Saberhagen draws upon the works of Edgar Allen Poe to make a rather strange bit of sci-fi. Maybe it's a bit pastichey, but it's a lot more interesting than another straight fantasy story.

Voyage of the star wolf by David Gerrold also gets a less than perfect review due to it's use of in-jokes and name-dropping from other sci-fi series. That caveat aside, it is a pretty entertaining bit of sci-fi, mixing drama and humour pretty well as the characters respond to the strange things that happen. Sounds pretty familiar.

Most ancient song by Casey Flynn gets picked apart by the pedant in the reviewer for being a butchering of mythology. This does not mean it's a bad book, merely that it triggers his personal buttons. Ahh, yes, often interesting when that happens.

Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay is a shakespearian flavoured bit of fantasy. While not written in iambic pentameter like another novel reviewed in here, it still has both story, character-building and symbolism in spades. If you're looking for a world to base your game off, you could do a lot worse.

Scorpio rising by Alex McDonough is much more episodic than most of the books reviewed, with the uncontrolled time travel device serving as a good way to keep things focussed on the current plot. This makes for a refreshing change for him after multi-volume doorstops with cliffhangers at the end of each one.

Dragon Magazine Issue 165: January 1991

part 2/4


TSR Previews: Well, you didn't hold out long. First out the gate this month is MC8: outer planes appendix. Welcome back to our unpronouncably renamed summon cascading pains in the ass. Please don't overuse them. Also in the generic side, we have PHBR5: The complete psionics handbook. We've filled in the core 4. Now lets introduce a new class, and a seriously reworked system for their powers. Issue 78 gets a little more vindication.

For the first time in a while, the forgotten realms gets nothing this month. Instead, it's spelljammer that gets a double bill of sourcebooks. SJR2: Realmspace, and SJR3: Dungeon master reference screen. Oops. Looks like I spoke too soon. Welcome to crossover central. See yet more areas surrounding the ones we know well, albeit rather larger areas covered more sketchily. Oh, and Elminster's hidden moonbase. He just gets more and more cheesy, doesn't he.

Dragonlance starts a new year with another trilogy. 3 3 3. This is why they wound up mocking this stuff in planescape. Anyway, it's another historical one. See the rise and fall of the silvanesti nation, in Firstborn. Even with their enormous lifespans, elves still have squabbles over inheritance. Weak.

Our evil overmistress tells the staff to stop abbreviating the XXVc game. It's Buck Rogers, damnit! :roll of thunder: You will respect my authority and pay the licencing money into my coffers! 25CS1: Deimos mandate! 25CREF1: Character record sheets! You will pay for the official ones of these as well, not use some scrawled bits of paper! Ahahahahaha!!!

Another wargame for you this month. A line in the sand is a game of middle eastern conflict over oil. How very topical. Who will control the resources that power civilization itself?!

And unsurprisingly, another standalone book is put at the end. Jeff Swycaffer continues to be a quirky contributor, with Web of Futures. A man is plucked from his normal life by a strange alien to be a cosmic saviour. As is often the case, he seems completely unsuited to the job, and therein lies the fun.


Forum: Carol McGarril has found romance crops up quite naturally in her games, without the GM needing to contrive things. Well, lucky you. The rest of us do not have that luxury and have to really work at these things.  

Jason Williams voices his skepticism at some of the tactics deployed in The Enemy at the Gates. Once again the conflicts over exactly how much magic to have in game become an issue.

S. D. Anderson has rather harsher words to say about the same article, picking apart flaws in the rules, and pointing out that D&D magic very much favours the attacker. All it takes is one strategically placed fireball to cause mass devastation, and you can't have wizards ready to dispel everywhere in the city.

Dirk Waters shows that the idea of reskinning thieves as scouts has been had by more than one group independently. And yeah, this solves them quite a few problems. Funny how big a difference a name change can make.

John Stanton Jr has a scattershot collection of gripes and solutions, which I do not find particularly helpful.

Bonnie Patterson has a DM who preserves her kender character in the face of recklessness and dickery. The other players may well want to murder them as a result of this, but the game is made more fun. Is this really something you want to tell everyone?

Robert T. Wahl grumbles about a player who quit because she didn't get any cool new items in the last adventure. He then goes into his own craptacular monty haul experiences. Huge rewards without effort just turn the game into a joke.  

Ron Dippel faced the awkward problem of a player who dominated the game to such an extent that the other players tried to kill him, and failed because he was just that twinked. Now that takes a special variety of annoying player to pull off. I suppose that's actually a good benchmark for proving you're a master of mathematical twinkery, since a DM can always beat the players if they really want too.

Michael Repka finds that DM's who also have PC's in the same campaign are cheating bastards who use their inside knowledge to twink out horrifically. This is definitely a problem, but he can't get them to stop. No gaming is better than bad gaming, you know.

Rick Maffei points out a few of the many ways magic items can be taken away from players if they're becoming a problem. Don't think you have to completely reset the game just because things are getting a little out of hand.


Chill gets revamped. You're still not gonna be able to compete when the world of darkness comes a-knockin.


The voyage of the princess ark: The princess ark sets off again, once again heading southwest, but not as far this time. They end up in Thothia, Mystara's egypt analogue, where surprise surprise, they face a greater mummy, (technically, a lich, but it's how they present themselves that matters.) who is pissed off at their appropriation of his magic. They win, but the bad guy gets away again, adding to the growing list of people with a serious vendetta against them. Haldemar remains pretty unfazed by this, being more interested in the ramifications for the Ark. Is it really intelligent? Just how would it be upgraded if they use their new discoveries on it. Unfortunately, no time to fix that right now, as it's cliffhanger time again. Gotta keep the story dramatic. :rolleyes:

This month's crunch is stats for several more of our regulars. Myojo, the rakasta samurai. Raman, the chief engineer, and his amazing portable magical library. And Lady Abovombe, the ambassador from Cestia who's had a rather tough time of the last 34 years, but has had her youth restored thanks to Haldemar's magic. We see once again that the Ark has a wide range of different level characters adventuring on the same team, and they have a complicated relationship map between them.  Goes to show just what you can do with a party, and still keep it functional. You don't have to use the 4 or 5 characters of roughly equal power model if you don't want to.

We also have lots more letters. The usual collection of questions and quibbles. Most notable here is that Bruce reveals that the Rules Cyclopedia is coming. No longer will you have to look up rules between 5 different boxed sets. Plus, it has a whole bunch of extras the originals lack. This is good news. They've certainly kicked this year off well. Lets hope they can keep the momentum up.

Dragon Magazine Issue 165: January 1991

part 3/4


Rifts is already Palladium's best selling line ever, despite only being out a year. So of course they will get the lions share of the supplements from now on. Expect delays.


The role of computers: Railroad Tycoon is a computer conversion of the old game Gary was rather fond of. The reviewers rather like it too, finding it a nice way to eat up huge amounts of time, building an empire, setting up a neatly running schedule in which the trains don't crash into one-another, and adding all sorts of extras to your stations, while competing with other companies. Increasing memory sizes really are doing wonders for the depth of simulation games.

Brainblasters is a pair of fun puzzle games, a shoot-em up, and a sequence puzzle.  Both get their approval, making this good value for money.

Imperium is another large scale strategy game. Conquer the galaxy! Live to 1,000! War, economics, diplomacy, you can once again spend aaages trying to finish this one. The graphics and sound aren't perfect, and also tend to overtax their machine. Still, that probably won't be a problem if you emulate it these days.  

Starflight 2: Trade routes of the cloud nebula also takes you into space, to deal with an alien invasion. This also involves substantial crew management, planet colonisation, and similar resource control tactical details. This is somewhat hampered by the fact that you can only do one thing at a time, which can be a serious issue that you have to work around tactically. As a result, it gets a mediocre score.

Ishdo: The way of Stones is a conversion of an old chinese puzzle game. Like shangai or chess, it's the kind of game you can spend a lifetime mastering strategies for, and they enjoy both the game, and it's visual representation here, with plenty of options and computer tutorial stuff, plus some good old fashioned koans thrown in for extra verisimilitude. Nothing like pretension to liven your day up, as oscar wilde would say.

Armor Alley and Stratego are the proud recipients of the buggies award this month. A memory eater that refuses to play nice with other programs running at the same time, and a game that crashes if you click on the wrong combat option. Not very impressive ways of messing up, really, but still dealbreakers for them.


The denizens of the lower planes are back in the MC outer planes appendix. (geekiest rapper name evar) Renamed of course. Because we don't do the D words anymore. So instead, we'll use ones no-one can agree how to pronounce.


Fiction: The curse maker by Laurell K Hamilton. Well well, it's another writer who has since gone on to, er, bigger things. A pretty good story here too, involving another hero with an evil sentient weapon, trying to keep themselves from going to the dark side under rather strong provocation and save their party member from death by politics. The various characters are established quickly and effectively, and the magic is handled with style. It all adds up to a quite satisfying package. Of course, given the current company policies, there are no 24 inch were-schlongs involved. She'll have to go to white wolf to sell those stories. Another interesting historical footnote here.


Role-playing reviews goes back to the superheroic genre. Currently, it's pretty healthy, with both Marvel and DC having solidly selling RPG's. This month DC gets the spotlight here.

DC heroes RPG 2nd edition gets an interesting and context high review, referring back to Allen Varney's review of the 1st edition 5 years ago in The Space Gamer. Time has improved it quite a bit, with the rules being refined, and the editing improved as well. There are a few problems, not least with the rapidly changing and retconning history of the DC universe, and of course, the usual quibbles about character stats. But those certainly aren't dealbreakers, and of course provide plenty of room for supplements. Which of course sets us nicely for the rest of this column.

The batman sourcebook, 2nd ed combines a whole load of stuff on batman, his lair, villains and relationships with other heroes, an adventure, and some essays on the nature of batmanness Sounds like they had a bit of a struggle filling this one up. It also has some whimsical graphic design elements that Allen isn't too keen on. Batman may be pretty popular, but can a single person really hold that much attention alone?

The otherwhere quest is a solo adventure designed for a green lantern. Obviously, given the open-ended nature of their powers, it falls short somewhat, and the environment isn't that thrilling either. Mehness.

The laws of darkness, on the other hand is a fairly good high power adventure starring the new gods. It takes you on a ride through lots of familiar locations before petering out.

They also give the complete priest's handbook a short and favourable review. Lots of cool stuff within! Try it, and you can have viable all priest campaigns. Yeah, right, watch out for the newbie traps. This is why a good playtesting really helps.


The marvel-phile: Hmm. A whole team of female villains, none of which are actually particularly sexy? That is rather unusual. Say hello to the Femme Fatales, another recent addition to spiderman's rogues gallery. Knockout, Whiplash, Mindblast and Bloodlust. Individually they seem like one-trick ponies, with one name appropriate power each, (the usual rule of bad puns is very much in effect here) but together they're actually a pretty decent team, both in terms of tactics and personal dynamics. Since they're fairly street level, they'd make a good fight for a team of novice heroes, like many PC's. As both one showing characters I've never heard of before, and above average in-game usefulness, plus a few neat quirks, this is a well above average installment of this series, that I quite enjoyed reading. Let's see each other again some time.


Maneuvering for victory: Hmm. Two years into 2nd ed and they're still publishing quite a few articles intended for 1st edition. That does say a lot about the current editorial regime. And this is rehashed in another way, because they did something very like this in issue 127's fighter special. Only this is less advantageous than that, and incompatible with it, as while the previous one gave them extra resource slots to select special maneuvers with, this one requires you to spread your weapon proficiency slots even thinner than they already are, which does get very awkward indeed. It also allows you to spend slots to improve your ability scores, which is incredibly problematic as a resource distribution choice. This is definitely one you should approach with great caution, for several of these are rather game-changing, but you could also wind up without essentials if you get seduced by the shinies and spend all your slots on them. And we know that having a character that is over or underpowered causes problems either way. So this is a textbook example of rather dubious crunch from the magazine, that you incorporate at your peril.

Maybe my second favourite dragon magazine, I think (my favorite was #187). I quite liked the "Manuevering for Victory" and adventure conversions module (Square Pegs). I'd read the story and never noticed the story was by Laurell "is that a naked werewolf or just the Empire State Building?" Hamilton, though. Heh.

The actual DC heroes review is here on the web for anyone who's interested...
http://www.allenvarney.com/rev_02.html
(navigate up to see his a couple of his other reviews too). Said glowing review inspired me to go out and buy the thing (well, the 3rd Edition version), for which I may never forgive Mr Varney. It may be to some people's tastes, but what with hero points going everywhere, 9 statistics including multiple substats that distinguish between "mental" and "spiritual" power and endurance, accounting-heavy chargen system, and having to cross-reference 4 stats on 2 charts to do anything, it totally traumatized me as a teenager.

BTW Unreason, speaking of trauma, keep an eye out for the ad for World of Synnibarr in Dragon if you wouldn't mind;) I eventually picked this one up as well...with more idea of what I'd be getting, though. Just curious as to when this appeared.

Dragon Magazine Issue 165: January 1991

part 4/4


Square pegs and round holes: Just 4 months after the last one, we have another article on putting modules into your campaign. This is a slightly more general one, helping you to rebuild them for an existing campaign. Ironically, of course, it's often harder to use the more recent ones in your existing campaign, because they have so much more setting detail that needs to be there if they are to work. This means you have to change things to integrate them, and quite possibly more things to get them to make sense. Even if you're playing in the Forgotten Realms or something, you may have to do some tweaking from canon if your players go to places out of order. (Dragonlance in particular is a nightmare for this. ) Course, if you're the ambitious type, you can not only convert them from different worlds, but different genres entirely. The process may actually involve more effort than just writing a whole new adventure on your own, but hey ho, It all depends how good you are at fudging and twisting existing things around. A challenging article, this does have some nice advice and statistical help, but it certainly doesn't answer all the questions you'll face when you try and convert a Call of Cthulhu adventure to D&D. Still, it should help in making sure no two experiences are alike, since no two DM's will handle the conversions and integrations in the same way, and characters from different rulesets do have radically different abilities. Another one wasn't too interesting to me, but hopefully got some people to push their boundaries, back in the day.


The game wizards: We've already mentioned it twice this issue already, but welcome back to the fiends. And hello to the blood war. Funny that such an iconic bit of D&D's setting didn't actually appear until second edition. And ironic that their temporary forbiddance has actually made them a bigger deal in people's minds. This does their reputation no harm at all, pointing out just how useful their spell-like abilities are, especially their teleportation and gating capabilities; and warning you to use caution in incorporating them into your game, make sure that even the appearance of a minor one is a big event for the players. With this kind of buildup, it's no surprise that they'll wind up one of the most common adversaries in Planescape, and make more than a few appearances in other campaign worlds. It's almost a textbook example of publicity via counteractions. Whether this was intentional or not, I'm not sure, but I'm sure upper management :rumble of thunder: doesn't mind too much as long as this makes them a good chunk of money. In any case, I doubt this will end the debates in the forum. Another fairly interesting installment in this thread of drama, as they change the rules of the game on us again.


Sage advice is still uncoloured and undersized. Skip is not happy.

If you have stoneskin on yourself and are struck while casting, do you still lost the spell (It's the hit, not the damage, that's important.)

Does persistent damage like melfs acid arrow prevent spellcasting. (Oh yes. You'll have to develop a counterskill that allows you to concentrate despite pain and distractions. Hey, arms race! Heeeere we go!)

How do infra and ultravision work. (we can do this simple, and just say they let you see in the dark, or we can do this complicated and talk about different visual spectra, how they react to objects, and where they are found, and go on from there. How do you wanna play it, huh? )

What happened to psionics (We wanna do it right this time, so we held off and are putting it in it's own book.)

How many attacks does a two weapon fighting specialist get (normal amount, plus 1 for the secondary hand. Now matter how good you are, you can't multitask that much.)

Does two weapon specialization stack with high dex (yes, but you can't reduce the penalties below 0. Being more accurate when fighting 2 weapon style would just be wrong. )

How many punches can you make in a round (Irrelevant. 1 minute abstracted rounds, remember. You make the same number of rolls as normal. )

What use is the 1 result on the unarmed table when 1's always miss (don't forget the shift abilities)

Can you wish for other classes abilities (Oh, this is a can of worms. Sadism is to be encouraged in this area, as otherwise game-breaking may occur)

What AC do bigbys hand spells have (0)

How does a necklace of adaption prevent you from exploding in space (magic, duh. )

Can Zagygs spell component case produce nonwizard spell components (Yes, as long as you know the spell. Handy dandy!)


Everyone is not paying attention in Dragonmirth. Yamara messes with Fea's mind. A dramatic arrival saves the day in Twilight empire


Through the looking glass: Robert kicks his own little topical crusade up a gear this month, with his reviews concentrating on all the things that'll no longer be for sale if this bill comes to pass. The Silent Death, a sci-fi space battle game using a hex board. An Amazon Queen, an Astrologer, a whole bunch of shadowrunners, tanks, mongol hordes and ogre marauders. Looks like using lead is pretty common regardless of genre. Which means it's banning will impact all kinds of peripheral markets. An interesting tack to take, celebrating life due to the probability of it being taken away. I think it definitely works, adding another layer of human interest to this little drama. It's a good thing that the people throwing up a fuss about RPG's never got the traction to try something like this. That would have made the magazine very problematic in the long run.


Spelljammer starts covering the crystal spheres of the various AD&D worlds. The Realms is first, but Krynn and Oerth'll get their turns soon. Watch them try and cross them over without diluting the themes of the individual settings. Watch the other writers ignore any developments that happen in the spelljammer books. It's all such a pain in the ass.

A fairly average issue overall. The crunch is a bit sub-par, but the stuff involving the issues surrounding gaming at this time is quite interesting. They do seem to be undergoing a substantial renaissance in terms of controversy, and this is having an interesting effect on the fanbase, increasing the degree of defensiveness in their writing. This probably isn't good for the hobby in the long run, but what are ya going to do. Things'll get worse once the controversy goes away. No publicity is bad publicity and all that. Guess I should enjoy it while it's here.

Dragon Magazine Issue 166: February 1991

part 1/4


116 pages. Yay! A Sci-fi games special. Haven't had one of those before. Course, for quite a bit of the magazine's lifespan we didn't need one, with the ARES section providing a reliable supply of that stuff every month. And we have had a couple of traveller specific ones. But still, this is a positive step in terms of interaction with the rest of the hobby, so let's enjoy it as I experience it.


In this issue:


Letters: A letter from an Israeli reader with some language quibbles. Roger gets down in the trenches and quibbles right back at him.

Another letter quibbling over the stats of the Griffon. Roger is a bit more magnanimous with this one, but still disputes some of their conclusions.

A letter of praise for the Mind of the Vampire article, from someone who rather identifies with them. Roger responds that he's always identified more with Kaiju. This could definitely spawn a series of responses as other people say what monsters they feel like/would most like to be.


I was a teenage TSR game junkie: This month's editorial is another delegated to Dale. And in it we see them reaffirm their desire to recognize that there's a whole world of games companies out there producing cool stuff, and hopefully give it some support in the magazine. TSR is not the only game in town, nor do we want it to be, for that would get boring. Try them out, broaden your horizons. Dale also talks about the fact that when he was younger, he didn't do this, sticking religiously to TSR products. This actually resonates quite well with my experiences, where for quite a few years, I refused to try other RPG's, on the reasoning that D&D sold the most, so it had to be the best, so what would the point be in trying other ones. (yeah, feel free to point and laugh at younger me. I quite agree. ) This is indeed a very positive editorial, and one that bodes well for their output in the near future. Course, we do know now that eventually they'll change their minds on this issue, and become all D&D, all the time, but let's not let it get us down. The Silver age of gaming still has plenty of delights to show us, and I'd like to face at least some of them with an uncynical eye (yeah, not easy, I know.)


Wired and ready: Cyberpunk! If anything says early 90's in RPGs, it's this genre. A whole bunch of systems are putting their own spin on this idea, and hopefully one of them is desirable to you. This brings the old worldbuilding and roleplaying advice to the new milieu, helping those of you still unfamiliar to get a good idea of the genre's conventions, and those with a little more experience to hone your DM'ing to a razor edge. Just how dystopian is your world? Is it the government or the corporations that are really in charge? Are there any real heroes out there at all? Yeah, the grimdark meter is running pretty high in this one, which does make it seem amusingly dated. But there is a lot of valuable advice in here, which does help you play in the cyberpunk style, while keeping the players from getting out of hand with superpowered hi-tech combos. Keep the challenges coming, make sure things rarely go as planned, (curse your sudden yet inevitable betrayal, etc etc) and of course all the usual stuff about good descriptions and planning. A fairly good example of it's type, this manages to take the general principles of good DM'ing and make them seem fresh.


Tricks of the trade: Hmm. A battletech article about modding your mechs. The writer decides to share his house rules, where he makes minor alterations to a whole bunch of the mechs, mostly to make the crunch better match the descriptions. Course, since this is mostly statistics on a game I'm not familiar with, this is one of those articles that is rather tricky to judge for quality. I think I'll have to just shrug and pass over this one.


A clone of your own: Or let's cross Paranoia with Car Wars. Tee hee. With some fairly long and quite amusing fiction in the form of dialogue from the commentators on an Autoduel, this definitely has more than a bit of tongue in it's cheek. Not that it isn't useful in a serious game as well, raising some serious questions about the ethics, legality and practical implications of being able to grow new bodies and copy your memory into them. They also give the process some pretty high costs, both financial and potential side-effects from the cloning process, which should keep people from getting blase about their character dying. This article really does have it all. Fun fluff. Solid crunch. Interesting asides. Humour, game usability, and transferability to other milieus. I'd go as far as saying that this is one of the best non D&D articles they've ever published. This has proven to be a very enjoyable issue so far.


TSR Previews: Having spent the last year roaming afar, the Forgotten Realms gives Waterdeep some more love in Ruins of Undermountain. Now they have a dungeon complex to rival Greyhawk castle in it's size (and unfinishedness) Do you have the patience to delve it all the way and finish Halaster's dickery once and for all? Good luck with that, he's almost as contingencied up as Elminster. If you need a diversion, we have Song of the Saurials. See Alias, Dragonbait, Olive Ruskettle, and the rest of that crew return to face the evils of Moander. That's not a bad thing, really.

Dragonlance gets an actual module for the first time in a while. DLS1: New beginnings. Come on all you novel buyers. Please come and try the actual AD&D game. It's not scary at all, honest. We'll hold your hand through the first adventure. The writing is already on the wall for this gameline.

Ravenloft has RA2: Ship of Horror. Arr. Another cursed ship stealin' people away in ye night. Taste the salty air of dispair. Will you be scared, or just annoyed by the railroading?

D&D is still down in the hollow world. HAW3: Nightstorm ends another trilogy with an epic finale featuring the immortals. Been a while since they got any modules. Just can't get the epic staff these days. Wonder how long before they lose interest in this little offshoot.

And finally, Buck Rogers is still releasing lots of stuff. XXVcS2: Sargasso of space. Pirates also seem to be very in recently. What's all that about?

Dragon Magazine Issue 166: February 1991

part 2/4


FEAR, a novel of suspense by L Ron Hubbard. With an endorsement by Stephen King. Now that's really jarring to see. Bloody scientologists. They are surprisingly good at this infiltrating the cool circles business.


The role of computers:  Wing Commander gets an almighty 6 out of 5, such is the reviewer's love of it. A 3D shoot-em-up with between mission roleplaying elements, visuals, sound and gameplay all work together to produce the most fun they've had in years. They don't have a single bad word to say about it. Now that is interesting. As ever, I am obliged to be suspicious. Was it really that good?

Armor Alley, on the other hand gets a conventional 5 star review. Assemble your troops to blow up an enemy base. Resource management is critical, since you have a limited budget, and need to pick the right troops for the job. Sounds like fairly standard wargame fair.

If it moves, Shoot it! also seems fairly standard. An arcade action shoot-em-up, this'll keep you busy for a bit if you've finished Gradius so many times you can do it by heart.

King's Bounty also seems like nothing special. An RPG/wargame, where you pick your character type, assemble an army, and get all the pieces of the macguffin so you can save the kingdom. There are some awkward gamist elements, and the saving system is rather slow and clunky, so it's not nearly as smooth an experience as it could be. Definitely better ways to spend your cash.

Tangled Tales: The misadventures of a wizards apprentice is a somewhat humorous adventure game, with an interesting (if sometimes frustrating) control interface. Like many adventure/puzzle games, finishing this one is mainly about finding the right items and taking them to the right places, which means it doesn't have that much replay value. Still, the puzzles are pretty tricky, and the visuals aren't bad, so it's hardly terrible.

In the clue corner, we see Curse of the Azure Bonds continue to get more hints than everything else put together. Man, the number of system bugs and tactical exploits you can pull with that are huge. I guess that probably contributes to it's continued popularity.


The game wizards: So, we have noticed that sales of our biggest product, the D&D basic set, seem to be dropping off. You know what that means? New edition time! Well, not exactly new edition, as the rules are the same, it's only the presentation that's changed. Oh, and the fact that now the basic set goes to 5th level. As they did with every new basic set before it, they try and tell us how much clearer, easier to learn, and friendlier to people who've never played before it is. This time with an emphasis on how they've used scientifically tested teaching methods in their writing to make sure the info goes in people's heads and stays there. Buy sets for all your friends and get corrupting them. The evil overmistress needs more money! A somewhat awkward reminder that their commercial zenith is now over. While they do still have tons of cool products to come, overall sales are starting a gradual decline that'll become quite an issue along the line. Depressing how quality and commercial success do not actually have that strong a correlation factor. Not that I know if this one was actually better or worse than the old Moldvay & Mentzer ones because I never bought it either. Any opinions?


The voyage of the princess ark: Haldemar gets rather messed up in this installment, as he tries to comprehend the powerful thothian enchantment from last time round. This results in his offending the people he's currently visiting, and once again avoiding death by sheer luck and chutzpah. This is why being a solitary wizard is a bad idea. If you go insane, there's no-one to tell you you've gone mad and help you, so you keep on getting madder. Probably one of the factors that contributes to liches going bonkers, above and beyond not needing to give a shit about biological matters.

This month's crunch is details on the Emerondians, and their unique plant based weaponry. Descended from space pirates, they have exceedingly light and vicious weapons, that combined with their unique fighting style, can really screw you over.  You can bet the players'll want to get a hold of this after encountering it.
The letters this month are primarily concerned with the Immortals. How they interact with their clerics, their churches, each other, and people trying to become immortals. We also have some general rules questions, and stuff on recent, and older releases. Seems like Bruce is being turned into quite the sage in his own right. What a job to be saddled with.


Dino wars: Another interesting game as our centrepiece this month, courtesy of Tom Moldvay. There were certainly no shortage of plastic or rubber dinosaur toys around in this era (even if some of them were a bit crap at standing up unsupported, as I remember. ) So like Clay-o-rama, let's round a bunch of them up, put them up against soldier minis, and enjoy the carnage. The rules are actually moderately crunchy, with some twists to the turn structure that ensure there will always be plenty of casualties on both sides. While playing this will require that you have a decent box full of toys already, it does look like a pretty fun one, with a lot of variety possible depending on what units you have and how you deploy them. Unfortunately, I don't think I have the stuff needed to try this (unless it's buried somewhere up in the attic, so I guess this is one I'll just have to sigh nostalgicly about, as I think of my own days playing with toy dinosaurs. Grr. Argh.


Fiction: Rest stop by J W Donnelly. Another old formula for a story here. Alien comes down to earth, imitates humanity poorly, terror and comic misunderstandings ensue. Course, the earth in this case is a fairly typical superstitious medieval fantasy world, which only adds to the fun, as they mistake the alien for some kind of demon, and react accordingly. The rest follows on entertainingly, but fairly predictably, until it reaches the end, which really rubs the joke in. So it is a bit cheesy, but fits well with the overall tone of the issue, combining humour and sci-fi elements to good effect. I think this counts as another modest success to add to the issue's run.


Arcane Lore: Another three tomes full of obscure magics this month. Manor's Manual of Sight was written by a blind wizard, and so it's obviously in a nonstandard form, printed on silver plates. It has three unique spells of increasing power that allow you to compensate for this lack of vision, eventually letting you cast your sight around, penetrating walls, magical deceptions, and darkness. Overcompensating in a world when all you need is a cleric capable of casting 2nd level spells to fix this little problem? Maybe. But they are still pretty useful to other adventurers as well.

Tymessul's Enchiridion of Travel is one of those ones who's theme is pretty self explanatory. Mostly standard movement spells of all levels, from levitate to astral spell, it also includes two exceedingly powerful custom spells. Tymessul's Cerulean Traverse lets you travel the planes and back with a bunch of companions by holding hands, and gives you some decent travel benefits while in other universes. Tymessul's Planar Pacifier deals with the incredibly irritating problem of magic items losing their powers when you go from one plane to another. They seem very attractive if you can make it that far. Since both are pretty expensive in terms of material components, you may want to make them permanent though. Course, if you've made it to 18th level, there's probably a lot of awesome things you want to make. Which is why some form of immortality should probably be your first priority.

Mylsibis' Codex of Contention is a somewhat less one-note tome, with two very different unique spells. Balance is a 1st level spell that lets you do things like tightrope-walking without a roll, stepping on thieves toes again. Mylsibis' Arcane Contention lets you fight a spectacular spell duel in classic novel style without hurting anyone, but only if you can cast 9th level spells. Since this involves summoning phantasmal giant monsters to fight each other there are definite shades of pokemon that make this a little more risible in retrospect than it was at the time. Still, once again, these spells seem pretty desirable. Let players know about these ones, and many of them will be quite happy to go on big adventures to hunt them down.

Dragon Magazine Issue 166: February 1991

part 3/4


Sage advice has a litle striplight of color at the top, but is still shrinking. It's like working in a smoky office with the shutters closed, and a single lamp on the desk. How thematic.

What order do the monstrous compendia go in (However you see fit. That's why we made it loose leaf. Course, you won't be able to get it perfectly alphabetical, cause of the two monsters per sheet policy. We really shoulda thought about that a bit more)

What are the rules for emotions (see ravenloft. Otherwise player choice is preferable)

RA1's scales are all out of wack (oops. That should be measured in feet, not miles.)

Does a ring of free action remove armour penalties to thieving (chance'd be a fine thing. )

How powerfull bonds can knock break (it doesn't break them, it simply opens them. It's an opening spell, not a blast walls apart spell. )

Do dual classed characters get a full set of new proficiencies (No. And even though Skip definitely said they did back in the 1st ed days, Skip will pretend that never happened. )

Is there going to be a harpers trilogy (Skip will do some investigating. Hmm. Oh sweet mercifull jesus. Skip sees that our hacks are churning it out as we speak. People buy this rubbish? Um, Skip means yes. Available in all good hobby stores soon :teeth ting: :sweatdrop: )


Role-playing reviews: Welcome to the kitchen sink! Yes, this month's RPG's take the concept of strict adherence to genre and laugh at it, throwing in all manner of stuff, with room for further expansion and adding odd bits and pieces from nearly any source. Now that's definitely an amusing development. There are now several games taking that approach, competing for your gaming dollars. Let's see which one Jim prefers.  

TORG gets a fairly good review. The conceit used to explain why the world has been turned into a multi-genre mash-up, and the PC's are superhuman (or at least, super lucky) is actually quite a clever one, allowing you tons of room to create your own plots, while also providing a theoretical overarching campaign goal that could be achieved eventually. The system is nicely open-ended in terms of power scaling, and handles large groups of creatures quickly and easily, while the Drama Deck and the dramatic editing (with neat IC explanation ) provides the cinematics. There are a few clunky bits, and the artwork could be better, but overall, it looks like a good deal of fun, that can be played in lots of different ways, or mined to create settings based on the individual genres incorporated. Which aspects would you like to emphasize?

Rifts gets a somewhat less positive review. The system is clunky and poorly explained, with little logic to how sections are ordered, and the enormous gap between regular creatures and things with Mega Damage causes some serious problems in terms of structuring fights. Looks like Palladium are already starting to fall behind in terms of design finesse. Still, they have many years of regionbooks and other stuff for this world to come, so it goes to show, system quality is not a huge indicator of success.


Novel ideas: A fairly formulaic entry here, as they inform us about the new novels they have coming up by talking about the people behind them. We've already seen stuff on Jeff Swycaffer and Mary Herbert, now say hello to L. Dean James, Michael C. Staudinger, Damaris Cole, and Robert B. Kelly. Course, since all 6 are crammed into less than 2 pages, to say there's not much depth would be an understatement. They do need to promote their standalone novels the most, but I'm not sure if this is the best way to sell people on them. Oh, if only I could think of a better way. But then, if I could, I'd be the one making millions. Sigh.